OK, so, just hypothetically speaking, suppose it’s Hillary. Who’s the VP gonna be? Not so much who you want it to be (or we wouldn’t be supposing Hillary in the first place), but who you think it will be – or at least who you think it ought to be. I think Hillary/Edwards would be a pretty powerful ticket. I have doubts that he’d go for the VP slot. From Hillary’s perspective, I think Joe Biden would be a good choice. He’s got a pretty good resume, a good amount of experience, and could temper any fears of Hillary being too “girly.” Though, if you think Hillary’s too girly, you haven’t been paying attention. It’s my biggest fear that Hillary will invade somebody to avoid looking “soft” on whatever it is that we frown about looking soft on. Terrorism, I s’pose it is, these days. It’s been plenty of other things, over the years. It mostly boils down to “us” vs. “them.” For the rationale, anyway. The real reason for invading countries is far more simple. It’s all about the money.
In the case of Iraq, the plain and simple truth is that this country runs (or slithers, perhaps) on oil. A presidential candidate can’t pretend that the Middle East isn’t strategically important. Sorry, it is. Until we have a president that actually wants to get us off the foreign oil (like now, please).
We went to Iraq to establish the largest military base in the world in the middle of a country that sits on the world’s #3 oil resources. And to control access to the Persian Gulf (which is what the first Iraq War was really all about). Our country runs on oil, and it makes a very few people a shitload of money. We need to cut these leeches off. We’ve already spent almost half a trillion on this Iraq occupation to control the oil so that we can pay three bucks a gallon for gas, while Exxon makes record profits. We’re paying from both ends.
Anyhow, it’s Friday. Go out and fry something – perhaps even your mind….
Sounds like Obama’s a bit of a hypocrite.
Comment by pjsauter — August 9, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
His rationalization is that he only accepts donations from STATE lobbyists, not national. Edwards says sort of the same thing. In a state the size of Illinois (or, for that matter, North Carolina), I’m not sure what the difference is.
Hillary is more of the same, and as such she is NOT an acceptable candidate. Until you look at the Repigs.
Speaking of which, WTF with Romney? “My sons serve their country by helping me get elected president.” ??? Seamus, sit on his face and do your doody, please.
:pup:
:yuck: :yuck: :yuck: :crap: :crap: :crap: :fustrate: :fustrate: :fustrate: :paranoid: :paranoid: :paranoid:
❓ ❓ ❓ Whatever :sheep: le
If you venture onto Wall Street today it is recommended that you take your led flash light ..or hook up a mercury vapor lamp.. it has the potential to be another BLACK FRIDAY
Picture Mr. Smut Romney as one of the shills you see all the time on infomercials. He appears everytime you switch TV channels. That is how grating his “charisma” is.
good morning folks
Once you have a Cockroach infestation Cockroaches tend to turn up everywhere you look.. We really need to call Orkin :reaper: :reaper:
Awe! :love: :love:
I like that Edwards is openly struggling with the issue of gay marriage. It tells me that he actually thinks about issues and how he feels about them and is not so bought by special interests.
and if you get a chance to see him talking up close and love, you can see that he really is…its not a show. I like someone who can struggle with ideas and change his mind…and who also believes in democracy and the right to the pursuit of happiness for all…I think that as he gles along he is bound to see that it is an inalienable right…no one *owns* marriage!!
So, I wonder why the stockmarket dropping 380 points isn’t on the front page??
Kristapea, exactly … :nod: re 10 … :growl: :fist: HiiiYaaa A!I!V!
Hey Fred, I will take cockroaches over rethugs any day, “cockroaches” :spank: shame on me … rethugs are dangerous to this environment … :growl: :fist: HiiiYaaa A!I!V!
Where’s my “ReThug” Spray? :barf: :sammy:
Now it’s down 125 points.
by Roger Ebert
Remember the scene in “A Clockwork Orange” where Alex has his eyes clamped open and is forced to watch a movie? I imagine a similar experience for the architects of our catastrophe in Iraq. I would like them to see “No End in Sight,” the story of how we were led into that war, and more than 3,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of other lives were destroyed.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070809/REVIEWS/708090301
All rethugs aka sociopathic , moronic assholes see with their eyes open or closed is visions of their credit balance dancing before their eyes :reaper: :reaper:
Good morning everyone! :joe: :joe:
Did anyone notice that it wasn’t until after the fed announced that the “economy” might be in for a slow down that the stock market started heading from the bottom ? I think that the “economies strength ” resembles that of a cow pie left out in the sun. or perhaps the oder down wind from that solid waste separation plant :yuck: :paranoid: :paranoid: ..
Looks like the Hawaiian islands are in for a bath.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_ep4+shtml/144036.shtml?basin#contents
I’m not a big Young Turks fan, but Cenk has an excellent article, We Have No Hope, at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/we-have-no-hope_b_59929.html
Happy Birthday, Ronnie! :cake:
Wonder if there are any tats under there?
Here’s some good news:
Rudy Giuliani drew outrage and indignation from Sept. 11 first-responders yesterday by saying he spent as much time – or more – exposed to the site’s dangers as workers who dug through the debris for the missing and the dead.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/10/2007-08-10_911_workers_outraged_by_new_rudy_claim.html
The amn shares many awful traits with Bush, including the delusion that he’s a tough guy. :yuck:
Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees asked a federal judge Thursday to invalidate a days-old law that lets government agents eavesdrop on suspected terrorists without first getting court-approved warrants.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/08/eavesdropping_law_illegal_lawy.php
:pirate: :yippee: :pirate: 😉 :growl: Tea Time :fist: A!I!V!
( 😳 just got back and gone in a few again :dancers: 😮 )
In the comments on Huffington Post to that article I keep seeing that most of the IDIOT MORONS that responded think that we are the only super power on the planet where as both Russia and China who are closer to Iran by about 24,000 miles than we are are both capable of reducing our military might in the region to ashes about as fast as we did Husain’s in the 1991 war… :reaper: :reaper:
ANFO to the people :tommygun: :tommygun:
fred:
anfo? like “all power to the people?” wow, that takes me back!
roxie, more likely violent explosive material (ammonium nitrate/fuel oiL) if I read our constructive friend correctly.
Summer of Love tomorrow?
vernon:
don’t think i’m going to make it. i have one more pal i’m going to bug to go…?
With the reaction of the people on this blog to direct action its no wonder the Reich has succeed as well as it has over the last 30 years.
For every action on their part the the left just ignored them or went out and :bong: :alc: :40: whee.. Was it that no one realized that more than half the coutry was composed of IDIOT MORONS who would believe every thing they heard on Reich wing radio. :reaper: :reaper:
The politician just assumes that if the news is bad the left will get stoned.. … a lot like getting rolled in an alley someplace. .. but I guess if you are stoned enough who cares.. :reaper: :reaper:
Fed takes action, but was it soon enough?
Bernanke, facing first crisis, opens money spigot to calm markets
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20215976/
============================
Capitalists love free money … yummm… yummm … ONK ONK squeal squeal..
The market closed off by only 31 points after the transfusion. :bong: :alc: :40: wheeee..
fred:
direct action is fine but violent actions only scare the masses into following their despotic leaders even more slavishly.
groups like the weather underground in the sixties, despite the fact that they were very careful to target only property, failed to scare the powerful. you mention that the rethugs fail to take into account the military might of russia and china, but you make the same mistake with the military might of the state.
i’m afraid that only non-violent action has any real, long-term effect. not as satisfying, of course.
I disagree…. the late 60s were dominated on the home front by big inner city riots .. A lot of federal/university property also went up in flames because of the war. Congress was very much intimidated by the tone of the crowd in that 1974 demonstration in DC.and the presence of counter snipers on the roof tops showed the powers to be that things could blow up at any moment. :tommygun: :tommygun:
Gandhi who is sort of infamous for his non violence only succeeded because of the tens of thousands of his followers that were occupying the Indian jails and the violent riots that that also occurred. :reaper: :reaper:
Firing cartoon guns isn’t exactly taking direct action, and, anyway, I’m personally not much for killing people and blowing things up. If it comes down to the need for a violent revolution, I don’t know that I have the guts to do more than cower in the basement.
I’m also pretty sure I don’t have the guts to stand in front of the tanks, or march into the teeth of the attack dogs, fire hoses, and armed police.
Historically, I believe that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violence. It also takes a lot more courage.
I suppose I’d have to see how I’d react when the time came.
The only way the state can do much is by means of the local police ..it would take 1 solder per every 47 people to enforce martial law. The local police only “think” they are powerful because they lead you to believe they have superior fire power and look dangerous ..and are a bunch of Reich wing weenies. In the inner cities many gangs have the superior fire power and the police generally don’t go there. 😮
true, but i don’t know that i’d prefer a gang of left-wing thugs in charge any more than right-wing rethugs.
i’m sure i’d end up in one of those re-education camps or worse. something to think about (from a bulletin from “josh” on my space):
Subject: My Che Guevarra T-shirt is bleeding
Body: Gently I say to my friends who adore Latin American Revolutionary Che Guevarra that, like many heroes of youthful pop culture, there’s an ugly stain beneath the man’s darned handsome visage.
Ah no, you might say, when I tell you he was a mass murderer. Too strong? Okay well, he was Castro’s point man on the pogrom after the 1959 Cuban revolution. Within weeks of Generalisimo Batista’s overthrow, Che sat as judge and executioner of mostly rank-and-file Batista henchmen that lacked the means to escape Cuba with the dictator. Che was the “Supreme Prosecutor” of thousands of defeated countrymen and ordered their deaths by firing squad after summary and illusory “trials” that lasted only an hour or two without any due process. Others he sent to labor camps he established that still exist today, filled with political dissidents, suspected homosexuals and AIDS victims.
These revelations were an embarrassing blow to me since I had the T-shirt that got the girl while we smoke bowls under the Che portrait in the off-campus frat house and talked about a just world.
My Myspace friends wouldn’t hurt a fly. They also want a just world. Justice at the point of a gun is not just. Reconsider Che. Find out for yourself. You might want to drop him from you list.
Thanks for listening.
Nice article Colette, thanks.
Wow, it’s down to 73 degrees here in the land of cheesesteaks.
Okay, gotta respond .. Deep Breath.
ALL SHARDS OF THE CRYSTAL ARE NEEDED
I am the CONSERVATIVE of My Kind . Think about it. :rofl2:
Does one even know that there are Dear Ones Rotting in Jail. ( 😉 )
Don’t forget the “Movers And Shakers” … Rock and Roll. Quakes.
Don’t forget.
Without the Radical Activists of PAST and Present we would not have what the rethugs are getting ready to dismantle.
I did the accounting and many PROTESTS for GreenPeace CA, USA
Lost MANY FRIENDS when I took the next radical steps and Became Head for E.F. L.A. and … … and help ran a Sea Shepherd major campaign.
NOTHING WOULD BE PUSHED TO ACTION LEVEL, even The Declaration of Independence. Symbology … Tea Party…
:boobs: Women Who :bee: have, Rarely Makes History A!I!V! :dancers: :nana: :pirate:
There was certainly plenty of violence in the sixties, but the anti-war movement that led the protests in DC was non-violent.
Civil rights was a non-violent movement which not only changed the Jim-Crow laws but won the respect of many. Remember little Ruby Bridges walking though that violent crowd on her way to integrate an elementary school. That I think was more powerful than any gun.
#14 Good to see Roger E back in action. Feisty as ever and it sent chills up my spine. He really is a fine writer.
Late weighing in on political action and violence.
Scene- Lawrence Kansas right after we went into Cambodia. Big handsome white leftist intellectual dude and big lefty black dude with huge afro leading a planned march to the Douglas County courthouse. Cops are cool. We get to the steps, speeches are made. Then two lefty dudes yell,”Let’s go in! We’re takin’ it over”
Stereo-typical brain-dead hippy dudes and dudettes follow. We’re running up the stairs to where the court rooms are. Black dude wraps his jacket around his arm and starts breaking out windows on his way up the stairs. We get to the top of the stairs wondering what the f*%# we’re going to do next and black woman with baby in carriage comes through the door with broken glass all over her and the baby screaming at us.
The end of political violence as an answer for me personally.
unless it was really really nessecary and only when the protection of the truly innocent was unmistakeably guaranteed
Hey, I’m ordering pizza from Red Devil, anyone else in? :dancers: :jesus:
Wow, Art, you were in the thick of it. That’s usually how an attempt at violence happens with me, after the initial burst of rage energy you think 2 thoughts at the same time,”WTF did I just do” and “Now what do I do??” :billcat:
Yep, if we all just got violent and started shootn’ folks and blowin’ up shit, we could have stopped everything that has happened in the last 27 years.
Darn tootin’! That’s the way you do it, you stupid dopers.
:rofl2: :smack: :jerk: :yawn:
What do you know when you’re at college and you’re 19 years old? :bong: :alc: :billcat: 😮 😯 :40: :jerk: :barf:
fred et al:
somerimes some violence toward property is useful as an attention-getter (think WTO), but even that can backfire: “tsk, tsk, why is my starbucks closed?”
it can also move the center in your drection, especially if it doesn’t scare people, ie, burning flags, bras, leaders in effigy, etc. symbolic violence can be useful in making a point, drawing attention, and releasing tension. even this should be done as theatre, however, to avoid scaring the people you’re trying to convince.
fear is an incredibly powerful emotion and makes us all seek a strong parent figure to protect us.
Roxie
you don’t have to answer this (probably best not to) but isn’t there some unspoken undefined line in your mind that if “they” or rather “he” crossed (which isn’t completely out of the question) that you would be moved towards opening what Malloy refers to as “the fourth box” (forgot exactly what’s in the first three but I know it involves voting and keeping your powder dry).
There’s a question in there somewhere 🙄
art, that was not directed at you or your story. Been there, done that.
Actually knew quite a bit but learned a lot more. Decided people should know better. The effectiveness of the violence was at best minimal and counter-productive in reality. It is probably a lot of the reason the tide turned against us in the 70’s and we are still struggling to regain the lost ground.
Sure sounds cool though, don’t it. :yawn:
artnorton:
my favorite action in the sixties was also in response to the cambodia incursion. it was entirely spontaneous the first time, but was so effective and liberating, it got repeated twice more. a big march from uw campus downtown to the federal building. somebody yelled, “let’s take the freeway.” the rest was history.
we happened to have a really smart mayor at the time, so after the next couple of times, he turned over the express lanes to the marchers for subsequent demonstrations.
the most interesting responses were the motorists. we got the expected fingers and fists from frustrated commuters but even those who initially looked nervous, relaxed after getting the peace sign flashed at them a few hundred times. and lots of folks flashed peace sign or black power fists and seemed to be really enjoying finding themselves in the middle of a kind of political “happening” — what better excuse could you have to be late to work?: “i’m sorry but a couple hundred thousand people started walking down the freeway…”
Sometimes there were provocateurs who started violence in order to discredit a group or action. Art’s story reminded me.
In the 70’s NYC was broke and laying off City workers. Some employees decided a city-wide strike would be a good move and decided to hold a march in Manhattan than would end at a union hall.
Before the march we assembled on 14th Street. Hubby and I. always late, joined the end of the group but were told by march organizers to move toward the middle. At the end were big guys who were carrying a large banner supported on cardboard poles. (Wooden pole are illegal in the City). There was never a discussion of violence or civil disobedience.
We got within 1/2 block of the Union hall and all the march marshalls, suddenly broke into a run and assaulted the police who were guarding the door. The cardboard tubes that were holding up their signs concealed wood which they used in the assault. I saw one cop with a bloody face another bleeding from the head. Hubby and I decided that this could not lead to a good end and tried to leave the march but the guys with the banner at the back, lowered it and attempted to sweep all the marchers forward into the melee. I tried to crouch down so that the banner would go over me but they lowered it further. Hubby punched one of the banner holders, grabbed my hand and we managed to leave.
I have always thought that the people who did the violence were plants. It certainly destroyed any hope of a city-wide strike and instead all the municipal services were devastated by layoffs and DEFERRED maintenance.
We may have to answer violence in kind, but I don’t think we need to, or win by, initiating it.
art:
yeah, i had one of thise moments a couple of months ago when i heard/read about the dog killings in china. someone would rip my dog out of my hands and beat him to death at their peril. i think the fourth box is your ammo, what are the other three? R, D, other, maybe?
Violence is a last resort. That’s the mindset I’m at right now. I would like to achieve Gandhi level pacifism and be able to take violence but I’m just not there yet.
scary story sue p.
at least a couple of local bombings were instigated by government agents, fairly common sh-t in the sixties that’s back in a big way.
violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets violence……………
I hope folks are still here… I had to work out for a certain time…..
then brew a few things.
I have to read … but right off the bat I wish to remind that in certain actions, certain things had to occurr … example the radicals are a rallying force. Black Panthers, certain weathermen, certain Move On, The Wolves were not paid much attention until many of our Actions.
Radical can not me maintained and then one joins the “norm” and writes or joins Politics or both as in certain groups with I.R.A., E.F., S.S., P.E.T.A. — many radicals brought to forefront the problems. I have to read what was written. Tea Cheers A!I!V!
art:
also, i suppose if i was the mother with the baby covered in broken glass, i’d be tempted to “pick up the gun.”
i assume you were the big, handsome white leftist intellectual guy!
Roxie, yes there were violent plants in 60’s (we called them possibly some of the Yippys)
I was a Pacifist. they even … they (The Feds) succeeded to INFILTRATE MANY GROUPS ( and tried mine), but we were about the only ones that were unable to gain entry into … for certain reasons, then we disappeared.
I was a Pacifist for DECADES, with P.O & S.O. wisdom with some Martial Arts Training.
SCIENCE INFO was Proven in the late 70’s and early 80’s — and no one “LOOKED NOR SAW “What’s Going ‘Round?)– especially culminating the 80’s “actions” however when I did read Art of W… I did so on my own … gaming always was a part. Then I saw the cruety occurring to the innocent THROUGHOUT THE DECADES and without a certain “elan” there would not be the spark the others to flame.
EXACTLY what WE PROCLAIMED BY ACTONS — some things got done, some didn’t. VIGILANCE WAS WEAK — not the MANY ACTIONS. The Actions Brought Sierra Club (which Paul Watson was an officer and STARTER of GREENPEACE then he STARTED SEA SHEPHERDS) to the ATTENTION of the likes of The Wolf, The Lion, The Redwoods, The Whales, and the like. :growl: :fist: HiiiYaaa A!I!V! Tea :joe: Time
Unlike, I.R.A. we did not take a life … but the Timber fallers did.
dru:
are you speakIng of earth first and spiking trees. was anyone hurt or killed from that? i thought that was mostly p.r.
There was recently an E.F.’er death …You would probably recognize his “other name”. I am from “the ol’ school” or aka Foreman’s Way E.F.’er. But now is the Time for “the Next Step” Ideology in the Strategy. A!I!V! Tea :joe: Time,
Not War Time … And they say, The Pen Is … :dancers:
Regarding the E.F.’er’s Death … This occured probably 5ish years ago now … but my brain only sees it as several years ago. :smack:
i thought maybe you were referring to injuries from logging spiked trees. apparently not.
Roxieseattle, 😉 :nod: YOU ARE CORRECT, those other supposed attacks were truly equipment failure and negative Timber P.R. … :growl: :fist: A!I!V!